PARENTAL GOAL ORIENTATIONS AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE COMPETITIVE-SPORT EXPERIENCE OF THEIR CHILD

We examined the achievement goals of parents' in relation to their int erpretation of their child's sporting behavior, preference for certain types of performance feedback about their child, the types of tasks t hey prefer their child to engage in, and their beliefs about the cause of their child's performance. The sample consisted of 96 parents whos e children were in the first year (mean age 11.3) at a large comprehen sive school in a major city in the United Kingdom. Parents' dispositio nal achievement goal orientations were differentiated by their respons es to the Perception of Success Questionnaire (Roberts & Balague, 1989 , 1991). Whereas differences in task orientation appear to be critical in the education setting (Ames & Archer, 1988), the findings of this study suggest that individual differences in ego orientation may be mo re significant in the competitive sport context.